Margie Tudor Bradford

Margie Tudor Bradford was born in Valley View, Madison County, one of five surviving children to Humphrey Hill “jack” Tudor II and Mary Elizabeth Noland Tudor. The family moved to Estill County in the 1940’s. Margie completed the first three grades a Rice Station and then entered Irvine Elementary School. She graduated form Irvine High School as Salutatorian in 1954 and from the Nazareth School of Nursing in Lexington in 1957 as Valedictorian and became a Registered Nurse. She and her husband, Dr. John C. Bradford, a retired dentist live in Bardstown and have six children and seven grandchildren. When asked what she considers her greatest accomplishment, she replied, “The contribution of six intelligent, college educated, tax- paying citizens to American Society.” The Bradford children are all University of Kentucky graduates with two lawyers, David and Christina, two Pharmacists, Laurie and Karen, John Jr., a CPA and C.F.O. of Flaget Memorial Hospital and Lisa with a degree in Business Administration. Concern for the education of her own children led to her involvement in public education, first as a PTA officer. “It was as an active PTA parent that I realized the power of volunteers working together to make a difference in the community. We were able to get things done that are still in place in the Bardstown School System, such as getting a registered nurse in 1973, when very few school systems had a school nurse. We also got cross walks and stop signs on campus, a four way stop at a dangerous intersection and crossing guards before and after school”, Bradford said. It was that experience which led to her election in 1978 as a school board member on the Bardstown Independent Board. Margie was elected the first woman chairman of the Bardstown School Board in 1981 and one of the first two women elected to serve on any school board in Nelson County at the time. She is in her twenty forth year of service on that board and is presently serving as Vice Chairman. Governor Julian Carroll appointed her to the executive committee on his task force on education in 1977. In 1984-85 she was appointed by Governor Martha Layne Collins to an advisory committee to help write the guidelines for kindergarten in the state of Kentucky when kindergarten became mandatory. She also was appointed by Governor Collins to a task force on early childhood education and development in 1985-86, setting guidelines for pre-school education. After KERA was passed, she was appointed by Governor Wallace Wilkinson to the Educational Improvement Advisory Committee, and was reappointed by Paul Patton to the Board of Directors of the Center for School Safety in 1998 after passage of the law mandating safe school assessments and training for school personnel. She was also appointed to Kentucky’s Bicentennial Commission 1988-89, planning activities to celebrate Kentucky’s bicentennial year. In 1993, Margie was chosen for the Leadership Kentucky Class of 1993 and was recently elected to the Board of Directors of Leadership Kentucky. In 1985 she was the first elected member at large to the Kentucky Schools Boards Association (KSBA) Board of Directors, serving as Chairman of the Legislative Committee. In that position she lobbied for legislation helpful to school districts and students. She was elected in 1991 and 1992 as Vice President of KSBA and in 1993 and 1994 was elected President of KSBA. Margie was only the second woman to serve as President in that associations’ 55 year history. In 1993 she represented the State of Kentucky at the 16th International Seminar of Schooling in Berlin, Germany. In 1996 the Kentucky School Boards Association Board of Directors endorsed and nominated Margie for election to the National School Boards Association of Board Directors. Running from the floor, she won election to the Board of Directors as Director for the Central Region and she represented 9 states. She became the first Kentuckian in over 25 years to be elected to the NSBA Board and the fist woman from Kentucky to serve in that position. She was re-elected for a second three term in 1999. During her six years on the NSBA Board of Directors, she has served as Chairman of the School Health Committee representing NSBA on the National Coordinating School Health Committee and the Steering Committee on Health, Mental Health and Safety in Schools Project. The HMHSS Project sponsored by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American School Health Nurses Association, for the last four years, is issuing national school health guidelines that were published in the spring of 2002. Margie was co-presenter at a workshop on the guidelines at the NSBA Annual Conference in New Orleans in April of 2002. Margie was included in a video sponsored by the Kentucky Commission on Women, the Kentucky Department of Education and KET, called Kentucky Women: Our Legacy, Our Future. The video was made available to schools with posters and a teaching guide beginning in November 2000, to show students the impact of women in the history of Kentucky. In addition to educational issues, Margie is advocate for women and children in a variety of ways. She is a 1985 founding member of the Nelson County Court Appointed Special Advocates for children who are involved in the judicial process. She is also a founding member of the Kentucky Child Now, a non-profit state group that advocates on behalf of children. Margie also served as legislative chairman of the state Democratic Woman’s Club 1987-95, tracking legislation affecting women and children and setting up annual workshops on lobbying, legislation, domestic violence, child abuse and laws that impact families. She has also set up panel discussion groups and workshops on domestic violence and child abuse for the Nelson County Democratic Woman’s Club and her Church, First Christian Church, Disciples of Christ of Bardstown. For her efforts she was given the Ann Shanks Bourne Award for highest civic service at the local, regional and state level, the Kentucky Democratic Woman’ Club’s most coveted ward in 1995. Margie was chairman of the Nelson County Democratic Executive Committee, Nelson County’s first woman chairman. She has served on numerous committees with the Kentucky Department of Education dealing with various educational issues. Presently she serves on the Kentucky Team of the National Healthy Kids network, as well as serving on the Kentucky School Health Policies Initiative Committee. The purpose is to train and encourage school districts to adopt comprehensive school health plans in order to improve academic achievement and help students to live longer, healthier lives. The Bardstown Independent School District is one of 14 pilot projects in the state and Margie serves on her local School Health Council, helping to implement the project. “Growing up in Irvine, with caring teachers who knew me personally, in a safe community atmosphere and in a family with the right values, has helped make me the person I am today. I want every child to feel loved and cared for by their community and get the best education possible. I want every child to look forward to going to school each day as I did. They deserve that and it is up to us to see that they get it. Children don’t vote or give money to political campaigns so we must speak for them,” Margie asserted. Somehow, we think great-grandfather E.P. Benton and grandfather, H.H. Tudor, Sr., each the father of 11 children, would agree.